Tuesday 20 March 2012 11.44 EDT
First published on Tuesday 20 March 2012 11.44 EDT

At least 26 explosions have hit cities and towns across Iraq, killing at least 49 people and wounding more than 200, despite a security clampdown before the Arab League summit in Baghdad next week.

The day was Iraq's bloodiest in nearly a month, with the breadth of co-ordinated bombs in more than a dozen cities showing an apparent determination by insurgents to prove that the government cannot keep the country safe.

Iraq is due to host the Arab League meeting for the first time in 20 years, and the government is anxious to show it can maintain security after the withdrawal of US troops in December.

"The goal of today's attacks was to present a negative image of the security situation in Iraq," a government spokesman, Ali al-Dabbagh, told Reuters.

"Security efforts will be escalated to counteract terrorist groups' attacks and to fill loopholes used by them to infiltrate security, whether in Baghdad or other provinces."

The deadliest incident occurred in the southern Shia Muslim holy city of Kerbala, where twin explosions killed 13 people and wounded 48 during the morning rush hour, according to Jamal Mahdi, a Kerbala health department spokesman.

"The security forces are stupid because they always gather at the site of an explosion, and then a second explosion occurs. They become a target."

Blasts also struck in the capital, in Baiji, Baquba, Daquq, Dibis, Dhuluiya, Kirkuk, Mosul, Samarra and Tuz Khurmato to the north, in Falluja and Ramadi to the west, and in Hilla, Latifiya, Mahmudiya and Mussayab to the south. Police defused bombs in Baquba, Falluja and Mosul.

Most of the blasts targeted police checkpoints and patrols.

"This latest spate of attacks is very likely to have been co-ordinated by a large and well-organised group. It is likely an attempt to show the authorities that their security measures are insignificant," said John Drake, a senior risk consultant at AKE Group, which studies security in Iraq for corporate clients.

Army and police forces are frequently targeted in Iraq, where bombings and shootings still occur on a daily basis. Sunni Muslim insurgent groups say that despite the withdrawal of US forces, they will continue to bear arms and battle the Shia-led government.

Although violence has declined since the height of sectarian fighting in 2006 and 2007, Iraqis are concerned about their government's ability to impose security nine years after the US-led invasion overthrew Saddam Hussein.

Tuesday's attacks were the biggest since 23 February, when dozens of explosions across the country killed at least 60 people.

The Arab League summit, on between 27 and 29 March, will be the first held in Baghdad since Saddam's invasion of Kuwait in 1990.

Security has been stepped up across the city's checkpoints, where thorough searches have backed up traffic for hours in recent days.

In the northern city of Kirkuk, two car bombs exploded near a police headquarters, killing nine people and wounding 42, police and health sources said. In Baghdad, a car bomb near the provincial council building killed four and wounded 11.

Police in the north-eastern city of Baquba said they had found and defused nine bombs, including one in a booby-trapped car that was parked on the road with a decapitated body in the driver's seat and the man's head in his lap.

By late afternoon, the toll from all the bombings compiled by Reuters from police and hospital sources stood at 49 killed and 235 wounded.

On Monday evening, bombers struck five times in the northern province of Diyala, killing at least three people and wounding more than 30, police said.

The government says it will be deploying up to 100,000 additional troops and police in Baghdad to impose extra security measures during the summit. The event is an important set piece for the government of the prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki.

Iraqi soldiers and rescue workers guard the site of an explosion in Kirkuk, Iraq. The blast near a police station killed seven people and wounded 30. It was one of several car and roadside bomb attacks in Iraq. The surge in violence comes a week before an Arab League conference is due to be held in Baghdad